that by revelation the mystery was made known to me, as I wrote before briefly.

Nobody can simulate a revelation. You cannot force a revelation. You cannot say let me go inside and come back, and I would have heard something from God. God is not an ATM that is waiting for you to press some buttons.

When Jesus told Peter that flesh and blood had not revealed that to him, He said, “My Father in heaven revealed this to you” (Matthew 16:17).

It was not even what Peter was expecting or could even explain in the moment. And when Peter entered into a trance in Acts 10, he was not planning for it. He did not set out to fast for 100 days to see a vision, and when Jesus met Saul on the road to Damascus in a revelation, it was not planned (Acts 9:3–6).

So we are called to live by faith, not by revelation. What I mean is, we should not be the people who tell Jesus if you can jump down from the tree, I will believe you.” We shouldn't be people who think the sign of a man of God is how much vision he sees.

God said I will pour out my spirit on all people.

That is all well and good, but to now say you want to craft a method to it, say you want to train people to hear from God, that is where I draw the line.

You cannot train people how to operate in gifts, even though there can be an impartation of the gift (2 Timothy 1:6), and there can be a regulation of the gift (1 Corinthians 14:32).

But Paul did not say, "See, I saw a vision, so you are less of a Christian if you do not see visions.” He did not say your life is based on seeing vision, even though he saw vision. Our life is based on Christ.

What Paul taught was not the result of going to school; it was because it was a divine choice for God to deliver.

Let there be no school of the prophets where methodology is taught, is what I am saying.

And Paul was someone who, because of the abundance of his revelations, was given “a messenger of Satan to torment” him, so that he would not be puffed up (2 Corinthians 12:7). For God to preserve the grace he poured out to him, he needed something extra to be humble.

And he never wrote to any church that they should seek visions and revelations. He told the church in Ephesians to pray that God would give the spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of him.

How that prayer will be answered in the life of the people, he does not know, but they should pray.

Revelation was part of his unique call under God. Jesus even told Ananias that He would show Paul how much he must suffer for His name (Acts 9:15–16). And later Paul himself speaks of being “caught up to the third heaven” and hearing inexpressible things (2 Corinthians 12:2–4).

And when John wrote, “I was in the Spirit on the Lord’s day” (Revelation 1:10), it was something that happened to him. He did not say there was a special stone that, when I sit on it, I have encounters, or a special room, or a special chair. They were not teaching us methods; these things happened by divine choice.

We cannot force God's hands, is what I am saying.

Paul said in the focus verse that the mystery was made known to him; he was just a recipient of the revelation, a passive participant in the process.

Moses, a pioneer for the nation of Israel, was also marked by revelation.

He received the two tablets with the 10 commandments from God. Those were revolutionary for the birth of a nation, and what Paul received by revelation is also revolutionary, the mystery of Christ.

Moses was one among the Israelites and was not the father of all of them, but served them; so also Paul was one of the Christians, but was chosen to see and do pioneering work.

Paul also spoke of imparting spiritual gifts to others (Romans 1:11), just as God took of the Spirit that was on Moses and placed it on others (Numbers 11:17, 25).